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Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Bad news: Rush Holt, New Jersey congressman and scientist,
is wrapping up his Capitol Hill career.

Good news: Rush will be the new CEO of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science! (story here)

Now that the Flat Earth Society has a working majority in
both houses of Congress, we can only hope that Rush Holt will be able to use
his new platform to argue persuasively for science, reason, creativity, and
optimism.This is clearly
his platform – including seeing the need for imaginative new thinking in
transportation! (see some nice quotes in the linked story)

We continue in this country to spend far too much money on
20th century solutions to 20th century problems and very
little on developing and implementing 21st century solutions to 21st
century problems.Let’s hope Rush
can give us a boost!

FYI, Rush Holt (who is not now, but has been my congressman)
is really a plasma physics guy, not a spaceflight guy, but “My congressman is a rocket scientist” has to be one of
the best political bumper stickers of all time!

Friday, November 7, 2014

The latest climate change report from the IPCC (Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change) scientists is out and has the usual grim
warnings.I read with interest the
“summary for policymakers” of the final report.Unfortunately, it’s a difficult summary (22 pages of dense
text and 18 pages of complicated tables and charts) and probably not much use
to policymakers.All the pieces of
the 2014 status report can be found here, including a set of “headline
statements,” which are a bit easier to follow.

The important takeaways (from my point of view):

·Yes, things are continuing to get worse.

·The good news, mitigation works: “Substantial
emissions reductions over the next few decades can reduce climate risks in the
21st century and beyond, increase prospects for effective adaptation, reduce
the costs and challenges of mitigation in the longer term, and contribute to
climate-resilient pathways for sustainable development.”

·The bad news, it’s still going to get worse:
“Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and
long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the
likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and
ecosystems.”

·How urgent is mitigation?“Delaying additional mitigation to 2030
will substantially increase the challenges associated with limiting warming
over the 21st century.”(How is
that looking after Tuesday’s election results?)

Although the document doesn’t offer much for policymakers (I
don’t think that was their mandate), it does suggest some guideposts for
further policy work.For instance,
they note that mitigation strategies and adaptation strategies can often yield
“co-benefits.”Examples: “(i)
improved energy efficiency and cleaner energy sources, leading to reduced
emissions of health-damaging climate-altering air pollutants; (ii) reduced
energy and water consumption in urban areas through greening cities and
recycling water; (iii) sustainable agriculture and forestry; and (iv)
protection of ecosystems for carbon storage and other ecosystem services.”There are also, however, tradeoffs that
may need to be made.

There is no attention paid to transportation, other than the
barest mention that very large investments in “low carbon electricity supply
and energy efficiency” in transportation and other sectors will be vital to any
mitigation strategy.(This fits
with my view that electrifying the transportation system is job number one.)

Unfortunately, the chances for an educated public policy debate
on climate change in this country are bleak and have become bleaker.Nevertheless, there is a lot of urgent
work to be done, and the latest IPCC report documents both the gravity of the
problem and the size of the gap we in the transportation policy world need to
close between the facts of climate change and workable, real-world policies and
programs.

Monday, November 3, 2014

King of Prussia – if you don’t know it – is one of those
regional supermall/supersprawl sites, in this case 18 miles from center city
Philadelphia.The good news
is that small initial steps are being taken to tame the sprawl and make this
mess of an area a bit more transit-accessible, walkable, and mixed-use.

A recent panel discussion in Philadelphia (“Crowning the New
King of Prussia”) provided an update on key happenings (press story here):

·A Draft EIS is moving forward for an extension
of the Norristown High-Speed Line rapid transit service to King of Prussia,

·The local municipality, Upper Merion Township,
has rezoned a core area for mixed-used development, with real prospects for new
residential development (currently the vast majority of the 50,000 people who
work in the area commute by car from neighboring towns), and

·The local business improvement district has
committed to ameliorating the “everything looks like a highway” appearance of
the place with some landscaping, road diets, and programmed open spaces.

Unfortunately the transit line – if all goes well! – won’t
be in revenue service for another 9 years.SEPTA, the transit agency, now has a good supply of state
money from the recent revenue package, but still needs to compete for very
scarce federal New Starts money.We as a nation just plain spend far too little on new transit.Even when money is available, it takes
an excruciatingly long time to plan, design, and build projects, even when they
provide enormous environmental and economic benefits.

The panel discussion included direct comparisons with the
Tysons redevelopment plans in northern Virginia.The Tysons complex is twice as big as King of Prussia and
the planned redevelopment and Metro extension are far more extensive.But at least King of Prussia is making
a start!

Congrats to PenTrans (Pennsylvanians for Transportation
Solutions), who sponsored the program, one of a long series of events they have
held to educate opinion leaders and promote sustainable transportation
(PenTrans website here; full disclosure: I serve on the PenTrans board).